The field of medicine has long employed health care screening to diagnose and tract patients"" health. An annual physical examination is a well-known part of patient medical care.
Hospitals, health clinics, and pharmacies, in addition to an active role is supplying medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, have actively promoted various health care screenings and wellness programs. Programs are sometimes offered with the help of other health care providers or coordinated on a national basis with groups such as the American Lung Association, the American Diabetes Association and the American Podiatric Medical Association.
To increase attention to the health care screening category, many medical and health produce retailers offer medical tests and screening for consumers visiting their stores. Most commonly, the retailers check cholesterol levels and blood pressure, although many other tests are available. In addition to supplying a valuable customer service, in-store testing effectively educates consumers about various health problems that can be better managed by a regimen that includes monitoring. Typically consumers are unaware of the technological advances that have made health care screenings feasible in the clinical, retail, and home settings. Pharmacies and drug retailers have generally found that point out that the availability of screening test devices in the stores increases traffic and cultivates customer loyalty.
The offer of in-store testing commonly is highly popular among customers and greatly boosts the number of people visiting the store. In-store testing is valuable for positioning stores as health and wellness centers as well as retailers of health care products. In-store testing increases sales since a consumer who learns of a health problem through screening in the store has some likelihood of purchasing a home test kit to monitor the problem. For example, a customer who discovers a problem of high blood pressure through an in-store test is a likely candidate to purchase a home test kit.
In-store health care screening expands the pharmacist""s role in patient care through education. Test device manufacturers have advanced the design and functionality of products to simplify usage and improve accuracy. The challenge for further improvements in health care screening is to educate consumers about the need for medical tests, and demonstrate that many tests are effectively performed by publicly available devices or at home.
A present concern is that health screening is performed on an insufficient segment of the population to efficiently prevent or treat ailments. Other concerns are that health screening is too costly, limited in scope, and time-consuming both for individual patients and health care providers. Despite these deficiencies, a strong awareness exists of a need and desire for improved health screening procedures and equipment. Health care providers, insurance companies, and employers that ultimately pay for health care have encouraged development and usage of improved, accurate yet economic health screening facilities both for treatment and prevention of health care problems.
Generally individual doctors and small groups of doctors have insufficient capital to maintain a complete health screening facility. Even if more health care providers were suitably equipped, typically only a small part of the population exploits health screening facilities due to time and cost considerations and apathy.
Health screening devices and facilities, to be most useful to the public in general, should have a capability to serve a wide range of patient and user needs and situations. For example, health screening devices that perform fitness testing including cardiovascular testing and weight measurement are highly useful for assessing physical fitness.
What is needed is a health screening device or facility that allows physiological testing and physical measurements such as weight measurements at a single test session using a single test apparatus.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a health care test kiosk includes a carrel body, a controller, a physiological test interface, a seat, and a weight scale. The carrel body supports a console housing and includes a support side panel forming a lateral side and extending beyond the console housing. The controller is housed within the console housing and includes a display and user interface. The physiological test interface is coupled to and supported by the carrel body on the support side panel. The physiological test interface is communicatively coupled to the controller for supplying physiological information to the controller for analysis and display. The seat is coupled to the support side panel of the carrel body. The weight scale is coupled to and supported by the seat. The weight scale is communicatively coupled to the controller for supplying weight information to the controller for analysis and display in combination with the physiological data.
In accordance with an another aspect of the present invention, a seat assembly for use in a health care test kiosk includes a seat and a weight scale. The health care kiosk includes a carrel body supporting a console housing and having a vacant knee-space beneath the console housing. The carrel body includes a support side panel forming a lateral side and extending beyond the console housing and the knee-space. The health care test kiosk further includes a physiological test interface coupled to and supported by the carrel body on the support side panel. The seat assembly includes the seat and the weight scale. The weight scale is coupled to and supported by the seat, the weight scale being communicatively coupled to the controller for supplying weight information to the controller for analysis and display in combination with the physiological data.